Media Reality Check

Not long after he arrived on the national scene in 2010 Republican Senator and forthcoming presidential candidate Marco Rubio was exploited by the liberal media as a way to depict Republicans as anti-immigrant. Anchors like ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Rose portrayed him as a token Latino in the GOP. MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch actually hurled a racial slur against Rubio, calling him a “coconut.” When they weren’t making attacks, based on his Cuban heritage, anchors and reporters were writing him off as a joke because he of his awkward grabbing of a water-bottle during his response to Barack Obama’s 2013... continue reading

At most companies, when someone who's worked for the company for 46 years retires, they get a nice speech and a nice watch. But at a TV news network, the audience is subjected to the most extreme fawning, complete with the bizarre notion that no one has ever criticized the retiring journalist. Following CBS reporter Bob Schieffer announcing his retirement this summer, Charlie Rose deemed Schieffer a “giant of journalism” who had a “legendary career” at CBS News. While Rose claimed that he “never heard anyone at CBS or anywhere else say a bad word about Bob Schieffer” longtime CBS... continue reading

Since newly announced presidential candidate Rand Paul first arrived on the national scene, as part of the Tea Party wave of 2010, the Kentucky Republican Senator has been depicted as a racist, sexist and heartless slasher of programs for the poor by the liberal media. The libertarian-leaning Paul was subjected to repeated calls of racism when, on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, he questioned the effectiveness of the 1964 Civil Rights bill - even though he stated he supports it. When Paul pointed out the hypocrisy of Bill Clinton-supporting Democrats claiming the GOP had a “war on women” he was called... continue reading

Ted Cruz’s announcement that he is running for president was immediately greeted with hostility from the liberal media. On Monday, MSNBC’s Jonathan Alter questioned, “Is this 1964 when the Republican Party decided it would go with its most extreme candidate?” Donny Deutsch, also on MSNBC, called Cruz “unelectable” and added “I think he’s the worst. I think he’s scary, I think he’s dangerous, I think he’s slimy and I think he brings no fresh ideas.” On the broadcast networks ABC’s David Muir gave viewers a distorted history lesson, saying Cruz was “The combative Tea Party favorite who shut down the... continue reading

While many Americans have by now heard about how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose to bypass her official government e-mail in favor of an account run from a server in her family's Chappaqua home, even avid news consumers may be in the dark about the troubling fundraising and conflicts of interest surrounding the Clinton Foundation. This week’s news of yet another shady donation to the Clinton Foundation, this time by a construction company with close ties to the Chinese government that happens to have a long history of worker abuse, has been largely ignored by the Big Three... continue reading

So, just how slanted were the Big Three broadcast networks in their coverage of the letter sent by 47 Senate Republicans to the Iranian government? A new study by the Media Research Center has found ABC, CBS and NBC gave three times more coverage to critics of the GOP letter than to supporters, and more than eight times as much airtime fretting about the letter than about the substance of the Obama administration's dealings with Iran. MRC analysts studied every morning and evening newscast story on the GOP letter from its announcement on March 9 through the evening of March... continue reading

Today House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz issued more subpeonas for documents and hardware in the IRS scandal probe. Just last week , the IRS watchdog charged with investigating Lois Lerner’s missing emails said he is looking into the possibility of “potential criminal activity.” It was also reported that Lerner raked in “$129,300 in bonuses between 2010 and 2013,” and there are at least a half-dozen conservative applicants” still waiting for their tax exemptions. But you wouldn’t know about any of these developments if you only got your news from the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks or Spanish-language networks... continue reading

Liberal journalists from CBS’s Norah O’Donnell to the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank have questioned Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for not rejecting Rudy Giuliani’s comments about Barack Obama’s patriotism and for his response to a “gotcha” question about the President’s faith. But where were they when Walker himself was being called an un-American, tyrannical, racist woman-beater? Walker’s welcome to the national stage from the press has been a far different one that candidate Barack Obama experienced. In 2004 , the liberal media couldn’t contain the chills up their legs when they first laid eyes on the “cool” “rock star” Senate candidate... continue reading

Jon Stewart’s announcement that he will be leaving The Daily Show , not surprisingly, led to wistful fawning from liberal reporters. NBC’s Savannah Guthrie lamented how “it’s hard to imagine the late night landscape without Jon Stewart,” ABC’s Lara Spencer called him a “comedy cultural juggernaut” and CBS’s Anthony Mason hailed Stewart “changed the game in that he sort of did what no one thought was possible in that he made politics entertaining” and “became a trusted source in news.” Of course this “trusted source in news” overwhelmingly skewered some of the liberal media’s favorite conservative targets. Over the years... continue reading

Debate in the Senate over the Keystone XL Pipeline is expected to heat up this week , but the popular project has yet to pique the interest of the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network evening news shows. Despite enjoying almost unanimous GOP congressional support, popular public appeal (57 percent favored the plan in a December 18-21 CNN poll) and being backed by liberal labor unions, some Democratic senators and even, at one point, MSNBC commentator Ed Schultz, the networks have mostly ignored the broadly supported pipeline. So how much time have network evening news show spent, in the last... continue reading

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